


Birth of a Revolution

by faenova



Category: AR∀GO ロンドン市警特殊犯罪捜査官 | Arago
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9384824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faenova/pseuds/faenova
Summary: Arago thought Seth was possessed by Orc, but that obviously isn't the case.The truth isn't too far off.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I love Seth, but we never get his backstory or how/why he got Orc's "devil seed" so... I like to imagine my own twist on how he became the way he is now.

Seth Stringer is twelve when his mother dies after a year-long battle with cancer. He's taken in by an orphanage run by the church they went to every Sunday, and that Seth still attends. The members knew his mother well and by proxy him, but none of them rise to help him after she dies. They wave him off with excuses such as "I could never replace your mother," or "We don't have the money to feed another kid," and his favorite: "I would be a bad parent." But any parent would be better than none, he thinks, because he's not sure that the clergymen who run the small boys' orphanage count. He doesn't think it's very Christ-like of the other church-goers to so quickly ignore him, but he's always been a quiet kid. He says nothing and gets forgotten in the pews.

He's thirteen and he still believes in God as a being who exists, but he's stopped believing that God is a being who will help him. He prays to God to protect him from bullies at school, but his prayers seem to fall on deaf ears. He thinks maybe God is busy, so he tries Mother Mary. The saints. Even just for a random angel passing by to acknowledge that he needs help. He asks the priest why God won't help him, and the priest says that God has a plan for everything. But if God's plan is to make him miserable, wasn't taking his mother enough? He stops praying for something that isn't going to happen.

He's fourteen when he summons a demon. He wasn't entirely aware that it was a demon, as the lovingly worn book of William Blake poems described a Spirit of Freedom, of Revolution, of Change. Seth has felt injustice and if God refuses to help, if God is the one who caused these injustices, he will turn to other sources for assistance. He draws a circle with chalk and begs for help.

Orc appears as the poems and illustrations depicted: a well built man with fair skin, a handsome face, and hair like the sun. More like a pagan god than a spirit, if not for his unsettling reptile-like eyes. Seth's plea is carefully rehearsed and Orc listens patiently, watching him with unblinking eyes before beginning a negotiation for the price Seth will pay for help.

He only barely recalls what Seth promised to give up in exchange for Orc's power to start a revolution that will change the world. Perhaps his soul. It no longer matters, because Seth makes a mistake. Orc holds out his hand and waits for Seth to shake it, to agree to their negotiated terms. Seth is a poetic soul, and a bit pretentious as fourteen-year-olds tend to be. What he doesn't know is that when making a deal with a demon, superfluous language should not be used. He reaches for Orc's outstretched hand and by way of affirmation, says "May we join together to be the face of the revolution."

Seth doesn't know that the binding magic will take his inspirational words literally. Orc does, but can do nothing to stop it once Seth's hand touches his.

Seth Stringer is fourteen when he dies. Orc is an age too old to count in exact numbers when he dies at the same moment.

He wakes up a few hours later. He knows himself by two names, with two staggeringly different lifetimes attached to each in his faded memories. He blinks away the fog in his mind and brushes his fingers against the chalk-marked wooden floor of the orphanage’s storage room. Everything feels alien, and his mind screams.

He spends an unknown amount of time panicking at what he's become. He feels trapped in a physical form, but he's lighter than he should be. Not quite real, not quite human. He clutches his head that feels ready to burst from the ancient knowledge Orc gave him, from the excess amount of _emotion_ coursing through his body that Seth gave him. He feels dizzy and he almost throws up, but keeps the unfortunate human urge at bay, taking deep breaths and trying to reorient himself to... this.

When he feels less likely to pass out or vomit, he looks around. A fog of colors coat his hands and float in corners of the room. His brain supplies meanings for the colors, the auras that drift and fade across his vision. A clock partially obscured by a smear of blue on the wall says it's three hours before Seth usually wakes up. But he's not Seth, not exactly, and he briefly considers walking out of the orphanage and never turning back. He has a mission, after all. He was born of a deal between an idealistic human and a revolutionary spirit--no, demon, now he knows. Orc was a demon, and so is he, at least somewhat. Seth should have realized Orc's true nature by the means he needed to summon him, he thinks. Seth was too naive. But Orc, he also thinks, was too grandiose. His plans would never work in this day and age. Perhaps this situation is for the best.

His rational side says that the best thing to do for now is to clean the mess that Seth made and sneak back to Seth's bed. He can't tell if it's his human side or his demonic side that's being rational. He thinks that maybe there are no more "sides" to him, and tries to recall if Orc knew any demons who were put into his current situation. It rings familiar, so he resolves to look into it tomorrow. For now, he scrubs chalk off the floor with shaky hands until all that's left are slight smears that are indistinguishable from boot scuffs. He crumples the paper with the copied summoning circle into a ball and makes a mental note to shred or burn it.

For now, he's exhausted, and only technically a few hours old. He wants to sleep. He'll figure out a long-term plan in the morning.


End file.
